Tips and strategies for online sales and marketing, and how to use SiteCaddy to manage your web presence.

07/01/2009

I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of this post, where I described 10 ways to improve your email campaigns. Here's Part 2 with 10 more tips.

Note: Many of these points are more relevant to email campaigns, but many can be applied to text messaging (SMS) as well.

11) Choose Delivery Times That Work For Your Recipients

There is no universally perfect time to send a message- what's important is the right time for your recipients. You know your members and customers and you can judge the best time for them. But here are a few tips and guidelines:

Sending a message during the weekend may result in a message being lumped in with many others on Monday morning.

People may not be as focused on Friday afternoons.

Your recipients may be in different time zones.

Messages targeted at business people can work well between 10am and 4pm on weekdays.

The weekend is an option for messages targeted at a leisure audience.

Coordinate your online messages with offline campaigns.

And remember that your recipients may not read your message until days or even weeks after you send it. Include specific dates in combination with time relative words like "today" or "this week". Your "today" might be your recipient's "last week"!

12) Multiple Messages for Special Occasions

Some subjects (especially for special events) are best served by multiple campaigns- like a "Save The Date" card for a wedding invitation. You might:

Send a preliminary message far in advance to alert your recipients to the event;

Send a detailed message closer to the time;

Send a short reminder the day before the event;

Just be careful not to overdo it- save multiple message campaigns like this for truly special occasions- otherwise your recipients might feel overwhelmed and opt-out.

13) Try Different Strategies

By checking your message reports you will be able to tell which campaigns are more successful. Not every message can be a blockbuster, but your goal (as with your website visitor numbers) is to focus on the trends and not the numbers. Don't be afraid to mix things up a little from campaign to campaign. For example:

Try different subject lines to see which capture the imagination.

Send at different times of day and days of week.

Try different versions of the same campaign to different recipients and groups.

Vary the length and the content of the message.

14) Write For Your Reader, Not For Yourself

We all feel we have something to say. We all feel our business is the best business in the world. But always remember your recipients' priorities. Will they be more interested in hearing your opinion on current affairs, or a special offer that will save them money and make their life better? Site Caddy can be a soapbox, but it should be a business tool.

15) How Do You Read Messages?

Do you read every message you get? Do you read every line of every message, or just scan the subject lines and first paragraph? Do you get upset by spam, or if a company keeps sending you messages even if you don't want them?

So do your recipients! Think of how you read messages and what messages you respond positively to, and try to apply the same logic to your campaigns.

16) Don't Overdo It

Since email and text messaging is inexpensive, it can be tempting to flood your recipients with news and updates. But not only will you lessen the impact of your important messages, you run the risk of having your recipients opt-out of your campaigns entirely. How many is too many? That's different for each business. If you've established a long standing rapport with your recipients, then they may expect to hear from you every day. It's also different for different audiences. Members may like to hear from you every day, but customers may only want to hear from you if you have a special offer.

17) Mind Your Tone

Your message campaigns are a part of your online presence, which is a part of your complete brand and identity. Make sure the tone and content of your messages is in keeping with the tone and content on your website and your identity. Make sure that whomever is sending messages on your behalf is on the same page. We all have a tendency to be informal when sending messages to friends and family, but this may not be appropriate for your business communications.

18) Don't Overhype

Readers are conditioned to ignore emails and offers that are "over the top". Spam filters can be triggered by keywords and deceptive tactics. Be assertive and focused, but don't oversell. Avoid:

Overused words such as FREE, OFFER and GUARANTEE.

Unnecessary capitalization

Large fonts or wild colors

19) Be Careful

Online messaging is a powerful tool. With the press of a button you have the ability to broadcast a message to thousands of people. And once that button is pressed there is no going back!

Send test messages to yourself or your manager to proofread.

Think twice before getting emotional.

Never MWI (Message While Intoxicated). Enough said.

20) Follow Up

Improved communications with your clients, members and potential customers is a good thing, and it's good when they reply to your messages. Sometimes they will want more information, sometimes they will want to make a purchase, and sometimes they will want to give you feedback. Make sure that you make time to follow up on each reply, or the recipient will not only be less likely to reply next time but also less likely to read your next message. Yes- this can take a little time, but these messages are important and often lead to new revenue.

If you do not want to hear back from your recipients, that's OK too. But make it clear. Use a reply address for your campaign such as no-replies@yourdomain.com and make it clear in the email that they should not reply to the email. Tell them how they should make contact with you.

06/30/2009

Sending messages to your customers and members is a good way to increase service levels, sales and branding. You don't need to have a great reason to send a message- simply wishing them a happy holiday, thanking them for their continued support, or reminding them of an ongoing special offer are reason enough.

But with the majority of your message campaigns (as with your business initiatives) you will want to have a purpose, and that purpose is usually to either cut costs or increase revenues. Here are a number of ways you can not only increase the success rates for your messages, but increase their usefulness for your business.

Note: Many of these points are more relevant to email campaigns, but many can be applied to text messaging as well.

1) Build Your Lists

Build your list at every opportunity you have. If you have a retail location, add a point-of-sale sign up form. At conferences or events, ask everyone you speak with if you may add them to your list after you exchange business cards. Use Site Caddy to add your newsletter sign-up form to every page on your web site.

2) Use Clean Lists

Dumping messages on every address you can get your hands on is not effective marketing- it's spamming. Make sure your lists are clean and adjust your campaigns based on what you learn from your reports. Your conversion rates will climb and your messaging costs will drop.

3) Use Message Reports

Most messaging tools like Site Caddy include detailed reports on success and failures after message campaigns are sent. Take the time to review the reports and make adjustments to future campaigns based on the results. Make sure to keep your lists clean (e.g. remove hard bounces) to reduce the risk of being flagged as a spammer.

4) Get To The Point!

Many authors like to build their story slowly, starting with amusing anecdotes and gradually building to a crescendo. And while the Pulitzer Prize committee will surely appreciate your patient approach, email readers will either skip the fluff or discard your message entirely. Recipients scan emails quickly and make decisions in seconds. Get your important content to the top of the email. If they want to read on for more details, all the better.

5) Nail Your Subject Line

The subject line is a bit like the home page on a website: the temptation is to add too much information. But many email clients display only the first few characters of the subject line due to limited space. Be careful or your exceptionally well crafted and descriptive subject line will turn into a non sequitur. Again- get to the point early, and include less essential information later. And you don't need to tell them who you are in the subject line- Site Caddy will include that information in the email address. Here are a couple of examples:

Bad: Site Caddy Will Be Hosting a Special Email Strategy Webinar on June 29th

Good: Webinar on June 29th: Email Strategies

6) Use Calls to Action

Message reporting is not an exact science. The best way to increase reporting accuracy and judge the effectiveness of your campaigns is by recipient replies or click-throughs. You can easily encourage both in your emails. For example:

Don't add all content to your message. Use Site Caddy to add the content to your website (e.g. new page or news item) and then include just a synopsis and a link to the relevant page on your site.

Encourage the reader to take a specific action. Instead of just announcing a special offer, direct the reader to click on a link to find out details or participate.

Encourage readers to forward the message to a friend.

7) Use Landing Pages

The page your website visitor lands on when they get to your website is known as the landing page, and it is often not your home page. They may be coming from a search engine, a link in your messages, or links sent from your Site Caddy site to a friend.

Make it easy on your message recipients. If you are telling them about a special offer, don't just include a link to your home page and make them find the information on the offer. Include a link to a landing page that deals specifically with the special offer. If you don't have one already, use Site Caddy to create the page- it only takes a minute.

8) Stay Focused

Once in a while it's good to send a general newsletter or digest that covers a broad array of topics relevant to your recipients. But more often than not it's good to be specific and focused. Here are a few tips:

Keep your messages short: 2 short messages will be read before 1 long one.

Target your messages to groups: consider breaking your campaigns up by group and adjusting the message for each type of recipient.

9) Don't Overcommit

If you are going to start a weekly email campaign, fantastic! It will be a great way to let your members and customers know what's going on and to drive sales. But will your team have time to compose and send a campaign every week? Will you have time to follow up on the responses and check your reports to make sure your recipient lists are clean? If not, consider a less regular cycle (monthly or quarterly) or simply do not announce that messages will be delivered on a schedule.

10) Be Consistent

When you do commit to a scheduled messaging campaign, try to be consistent. Send messages on the same day of the week or month so your recipients will get in a routine. You can always mix in special announcements at any time.

Tomorrow I will list another 10 tips. Do you have any great tips? Comment on this blog post.

06/13/2009

In 2007 I was pitching a new website to the committee of a prospective client in Dublin. One of the attendees asked "What is the most important factor in creating a successful website?". I must have seemed very on-the-ball when I had an answer at the ready- luckily I had been considering that very question myself just a couple of days earlier!

My answer was simple and I stick by it today: to be successful the website must be a priority in your business. I'm pretty sure they were expecting a somewhat more technical answer like Search Engine Optimization or Content Management. But if the online presence is not considered a priority, the rest will not matter. In fact I would go so far as to say that it is difficult to fail if you make your online presence a priority, and it is difficult to succeed if you do not.

Shifting Priorities

In the 10 years I've been building websites for clients I've noticed a marked shift in how our current and prospective clients view the importance of an online marketing presence. For fun let's compare with the traditional 5 stages of grief:

1. Denial: I don't need a website. We do just fine without one. Web developers need not apply.2. Anger: I will scream if one more person asks me why we don't have a website.3. Bargaining: I begrudgingly admit I need a website. I don't care how it works as long as it's cheap!4. Depression: Why is my website not cutting my costs and increasing my sales?5. Acceptance: We need to have a website that works. It's going to be our most important sales and marketing tool.

If I was going to add a 6th stage to that list, it would be this:

6. Control: For our web presence to be effective, we need to have full control. No one knows our business or our market better than we do.

Should It Be A Priority? Make Me A Believer.

For those that are navigating the murky waters between stages 1 and 4, let's take a look at a few reasons why your online presence should be a priority:

Online sales and marketing is cost effective. For example, our Site Caddy service gives you everything you need to manage a world-class web presence for just a few dollars/euro per day. Compare that with the cost of print, postage, radio, television, or other traditional forms of advertising.

Online sales and marketing is growing.Even in the current economy almost all news and research channels are reporting increased spending and success in the online sector. For businesses, it's the best way to cut sales and marketing costs. For consumers, the web is the best place to comparison shop.

Online sales and marketing is global.Unless you are at the level of Coca-Cola or IBM, you probably don't have the marketing budget to reach people outside your local area. Wrong! One website + a little online marketing + a bit of creativity = global audience. And you can target your message to only the regions you are interested in.

Your competition is doing it. If your friend jumps off a bridge, that does not mean you should too. But if your competitors are effectively using the internet to attract new customers and provide them with better service and prices, don't get left behind.

The world is changing. Every day your demographic is getting younger and more internet savvy. Even if you think your current customer base does not care about the internet, your next generation of clients will. Every day your customers and members are relying more on the web to provide services and help make buying decisions. You had better be ready for them, or someone else will.

Online sales and marketing is easy! Do not fear the web. Embrace it. Start small, both in terms of ambition and budget. But get started today.

I could go on and on, but at this point I am going to assume I did my job of convincing you that the web should be a priority for your organization. What do we do now?

Making Your Web Presence A Priority

Welcome to Stage 5- Acceptance. You've decided that a solid web presence is critical to the success of your business. How do I make it a priority?

Choose a Web Czar

OK, maybe the term Web Czar is a little dramatic, but you need to have one person in your organization that is tasked with the web. This person needs to believe in the power of the web. They do not need to be an expert- only willing to try and to learn.

If you're a small business (or a one person operation) then you are the Web Czar. I know you already work too many hours and have too many responsibilities on your plate. But establishing the web as a priority means just that: it's a priority and you need to make room in your schedule. Think of the time you will save in the long run if the web site is doing your sales and marketing for you.

And yes, if the home page of your website is advertising a special offer that expired 2 months ago- blame the Web Czar. But if your online sales jump 50% in each of the 1st 3 months of their reign, take them to lunch and lavish them with praise.

Create a Budget

There are a ton of great things you can do on the web for free, especially if you're creative. But unless you've got a time on your hands or IT and marketing departments at your disposal, you will probably need to spend something on your online presence. If it is a priority, then it should be budgeted as such. Start small. Measure your results. Increase the spend on the areas that work.

Keep Your Eye On It

If you're not used to having your web presence as a priority, it can be easily forgotten. A few simple tricks can help you to keep the web on the brain. For example, make your web site your browser's home page so it's the first thing you see each time you go online. Set reminders for yourself to update the site at regular intervals. Always look for opportunities to leverage your website and online communications. Always look for ways to drive visitors to your website.

Take Action

This is where Site Caddy comes in. You have established that your online marketing is a priority. You have established that your web presence is a top priority for your business. A member of your team has been tasked with not only keeping the website up to date but to finding new ways to use it. They use Site Caddy every day to update the site, drive online sales, build their contact database, and communicate with members, customers and prospects.

And yes- we got that gig in Dublin! They have made their online marketing a priority, they have doubled their online bookings in each of the last two years, and they are very happy.

06/06/2009

With traditional desktop applications, you had to install a specific type of software on your computer to run a specific type of program- like Microsoft Word. If you got a new computer or wanted to get the latest version of Word, you had to buy a new copy. And there were still no guarantees that your Word documents would be compatible with everyone else's.

Web browsers have evolved differently. There are versions available for every computer. They are based on standards (or are supposed to be) so you can use any browser you like. They can do many different jobs. They're regularly updated and improved. But most of all- they are FREE!!!

But despite the fact they cost nothing, a relatively large percentage of web surfers in the world use old browsers. The main offender is Internet Explorer from Microsoft, primarily because Microsoft has not made it easy enough for users to upgrade. And unfortunately version 6 of Internet Explorer is widely accepted as one of the most poorly written pieces of software of all time!

But the solution is simple: download the latest version of a web browser and enjoy the best of what Site Caddy and the web have to offer! Here is a list of the major players in the market, as well as my 2 cents on which are the best.

Firefox from MozillaDownload: http://www.firefox.comCurrent % of market: 47.7%My Opinion: The best browser available.

Safari from AppleDownload: http://www.apple.com/safari/download/Current % of market: 3.0%Opinion: Clean and elegant like all Apple products, but still not best option for Windows users.

Other ContendersiPhone: Many people now surf the web from their iPhoneNetscape: No longer in production- switch to Firefox.AOL Explorer from America Online: If you're an AOL subscriber and you absolutely have to...

So get the most out of the web and your Site Caddy account: download the latest browsers (especially if you are using Internet Explorer v6) and get surfing. And since their free, feel free to try them all out and see what you like the best!

Enabling the subscribe feature on your website is a fantastic way to build your mailing list and it happens automatically through Site Caddy. Once you enable the Subscribe button, your visitors can click the Subscribe link in the Page Tools section, fill out a form with name and email address, and their information is automatically added to your People Caddy list.

When visitors subscribe, they are automatically added to a group in People Caddy called Subscribers. This way you can tell them apart from other members, customers or staff.

But make sure if you do enable your subscriber list that you use it! These are customers and members that are interested in hearing what you have to say. Make sure to keep them in the loop- even a simple mailshot once per month or per quarter to alert them to special offers or interesting news.

06/02/2009

Welcome to the new Site Caddy blog- a place for Team Site Caddy to tell you more about what's going on behind the scenes, new features coming to Site Caddy soon, and the best ways to get the most out of your accounts.

For each blog post, we look forward to your comments! And feel free to tell your friends- the more the merrier.